A Good Year for the Roses (1988)

by Timlin, Mark

  Somewhere I could jump in and pull over myself.

  When somebody started playing ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ on the juke, I went off to find a bank. I withdrew £100 in cash and went back to the car. On the way I stopped at a chemist and bought a toothbrush, some paste and a shaving kit. Even in times of adversity I wanted to have clean teeth and a smooth jaw. I also stopped at an off-license and bought a bottle of good scotch. By the time I reached the car, I felt that everyone in the street was watching me.

  Right by where I'd parked the motor was a hi-fi store. Inside they were demonstrating a new compact disc player. The record that was being played was ‘Carmen'. I stopped to listen as I checked if the Trans-Am was being bugged. There were no squads of marksmen wearing flak jackets, ready to riddle the car and me with M-16 rifle fire. Not even a traffic warden in sight. I relaxed when I found that the Ingram was where I'd left it. I rolled down the window and listened to the music as I sat in the car deciding where to go next.

  I drove out of Croydon and headed south again. The sort of place I was looking to hole up in would be large and anonymous, full of transients. The last thing I needed was a nosey landlady. I drove down in the direction of Gatwick airport, avoiding the motorway. I struck lucky almost immediately. I was just about a mile from the airport when I came across a single storey motel. It had a huge carpark shadowed by the giant oak trees. I mentally thanked the architect who had landscaped the outside. I drove to the furthest corner of the lot, and parked the car close up under the leafiest tree. It must have been a car thieve's paradise, when I left the car I couldn't see the motel at all.

  I found an old Nike sports’ bag in the boot of the Pontiac. The canvas was scuffed and grubby, but passable. I wanted to look like a rep on his way to his sales area having a night in an hotel on expenses. Into the bag I put the toilet gear that I had purchased, the bottle of scotch and the machine pistol. I kept the Cobra in the waistband of my jeans. Then I went to see if there were any rooms available. I got a single, with shower en suite with no problem. The girl on the reception was totally disinterested in me. It did my ego no good, but bolstered my sense of safety. I checked in with a fake name and car registration. I paid cash in advance, and trusted that no-one would bother to look around for the non-existant Ford Sierra, that I claimed to drive.

  There was no porter, so I had to find my own room. That was another plus.

  The room was small and smelt of dirty socks, used ashtrays and old sex. But the bed was a fair three quarter double, the bathroom was clean and the room contained a colour TV that showed recent movies on a special channel, twenty four hours a day. At least I didn't have to think if I didn't want to. On the way to the room I saw an ice making machine in the corridor. I went and filled one of the tooth glasses from the bathroom with ice. Into the other I put the rose from the cemetery to keep it fresh.

  I turned on the TV and watched ‘Back To The Future’ on video and drank scotch on the rocks. Not that I particularly like scotch, but I figured that a private eye in a scruffy hotel room should do just that.

  Now the taste of scotch always reminds me of that night, I don't drink it often any more. It also helped my hands to stop shaking and blocked out the memory of how terrified I'd been under fire. When the booze made me feel brave again, I checked the M10 over to familiarize myself with its workings. The magazine was fully loaded with thirty two brass jacketed slugs. I wondered if I'd have the nerve to pull the trigger. I'd only fired a machine gun once before, on a special anti-terrorist course when I'd been on the force. All I could remember about them was, they had a tendency to pull upwards whilst firing, they were very noisy and stank of gunpowder.

  When half the whiskey was gone and I'd watched two more movies on the tube, I ordered a steak and baked potato from room service. I asked them to bring along a bottle of red wine with the meal because Patsy's face was beginning to creep into the corner of my mind as I stared at the TV set. I knew it would take a lot of alcohol to keep her out of my thoughts.

  While I waited for the food to arrive, I switched the TV over to the evening news. The cemetery killings were the main story. Thank God there were no detailed pictures. The cameras had only been allowed to film the Rolls-Royce from a distance. No names were mentioned. The news people obviously had very little hard information to work from. They tried to flesh out the report of the triple murder by interviewing one of the witnesses who'd been in the crematorium when the killing took place. He'd seen nothing of the actual explosion and shooting, but managed to give a fairly accurate description of me. I was described as the third gunman. Charming. I was reported to have escaped in a large American car. The witness also described Blondie and his partner. They'd fled in a black car. That was all. When an item about Princess Diana opening a kidney unit appeared on the screen, I switched back to ‘The Terminator’ on the movie channel. It seemed an apt choice.

  I could hardly face the meal when it arrived. The steak was dry and the potato undercooked. The salad that accompanied the food had surrendered to old age long before it reached my plate. I ate what I could and chased the rest around my plate for a while. I drank the wine straight from the bottle. It looked like blood and tasted slightly of decay, but I was getting too drunk to care. Finally I fell asleep with the TV still playing, my revolver lying on the bed next to me. That night I had the first of the awful recurring dreams that have haunted me ever since. I dreamt that I was walking through a garden filled with rose bushes. They were all the same variety as the one Patsy had held at the cemetery. The perfume that rose from the flowers was thick and heady. I knew that danger lurked in the garden, that people were hiding from me amongst the bushes. And I knew who they were, they were the people I had seen dead over the past few days. I was desperate to avoid them. I was sure if I spoke to any one of them I would die myself. I could feel the eyes of the cadavers upon me and smell their putrescence through the scent of the roses. I awoke with the .38 clutched in my fist, the hammer drawn back. My finger was twitching on the trigger, a bare fraction of an ounce of pressure from pulling it. The gun was aimed at the TV set, where ‘Back To The Future’ was playing on the screen.

  I carefully eased the hammer back and stuck the gun under my pillow. I dried my sweat on the sheet and fell asleep again.

  Finally the morning insinuated itself through the thin curtains of my room and squeezed beneath my eyelids. I woke up sweating again in the overheated atmosphere. I was repulsed by my own stale smell. I dragged myself out of bed and staggered into the tiny bathroom and showered in the cramped stall. Then I shaved and cleaned my teeth. I dressed in two day old crumpled clothing and demanded coffee from room service. It was only warm when it arrived twenty minutes later, but after a potful I began to feel half human. I left the detritus of my stay to the maids and went and returned my key to reception. I was ignored again by the new blonde at the desk. I looked at myself in the mirror in the reception and decided I looked surprisingly respectable. I was only a little ragged around the edges. My eyes were slightly pink, but not so as anyone would remark upon them. Luckily I wasn't hungover. There must have been so much adrenalin in my blood it had neutralised the alcohol.

  I went out and found my car in the morning mist. It hadn't been touched and started immediately. I drove down to Gatwick Airport. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was catch a plane. Any plane, anywhere. I'm sure if I'd had my passport on me I'd have buggered off to Spain. I fought back the urge to flees and parked the Pontiac in the long-term car park. I locked it up and pocketed the keys. I hoped Charlie would get his car back. It had been invaluable to me, and I'd grown rather fond of the beast. But for now it had outlived its usefulness. I walked from the car park to the BR station. There was a through train to Victoria due in just under five minutes and I bought a ticket. I also purchased a newspaper from the newstand. The murders were front page news. No arrests had been made so far. The paper had sussed out that international drug dealing was behind the crime. I was mentioned again but with little deta
il. However, they'd identified the Trans-Am even if the registration number printed was two digits out. Perhaps the police would find it parked up at the airport and assume I'd jetted off to the Costa Del Crime. I guessed that within a few hours, one way or another they'd know I hadn't, but by then it would be too late. I caught the train and travelled back up to town. The compartment was nearly empty as it was a weekend. I sat and looked at the country turn to suburbs and then city proper with the bag of massive firepower resting on my lap. When I got to Victoria I ate a proper breakfast in a back street cafe, and then got lost in the West End. I wandered around the familiar streets for hours. I knew that time was running out, but I couldn't bring myself to face whatever was waiting for me south of the river. I found myself in Soho at lunchtime. I went into a pub, but drank only fruit juice. I caught an early showing of a porno film in Brewer Street. I sat in the deserted cinema and stared at the naked bodies on the screen and felt nothing. I felt cold and emotionless. I had cut everything out of my mind except for the need for vengeance. I felt the cinema after twenty minutes and found a call box. I tried George Bright at his warehouse. Surprisingly he answered after the first ring. I said nothing just gently replaced the receiver onto the cradle after he spoke. I left the telephone box and hailed a cab.

  Chapter Thirty One

  The cabbie dropped me off at the gates to Brockwell park. I crossed over the road and walked under the railway bridge. When I got to the warehouse, there were lights burning on the ground floor. The mesh gates were open and I went round to the back of the building. The loading bay was closed up tight. The outside steps leading down to the basement looked promising so I crept down them on tip-toe. I couldn't see any sign of life, and with luck George would be on his own on a weekend afternoon. The basement area smelt of cats and was piled with garbage. Underfoot the ground was slimy. I picked my way as quietly as possible through the junk and tried the windows, one by one. All of them were bolted and barred. Down at the end of the entry, around a blind corner was a door. I tried the handle. Of course it was locked tight. I felt sick, after all my brave intentions, I couldn't even get into the place.

  I leant back against the wall and tried to concoct a plan. As I was thinking, I heard the rattle of the loading bay door opening. I peered up from the basement, through iron railings and saw the door rolling up into it's mounting. Standing in the opening was the fat man from the Brixton squat, who I'd subsequently seen pump two shots into the back of the Rolls-Royce in Norwood Cemetery. The man that David had told me was named Grant, now dressed in khaki fatigue trousers and an Iron Maiden T-Shirt.

  I unzipped the sports bag and took out the Colt Cobra, which I tucked into the waistband of my jeans, at the back, out of sight again. I carefully removed the M10 and wrapped the leather strap around my forearm. I left the bag amongst the other rubbish in the entry. I walked back through the muck and climbed the stone steps slowly back to ground level. Grant was carefully man-handling a giant juke-box onto the edge of the loading bay.

  So it was business as usual at George's. The box was probably full of A.1 pink Peruvian flake.

  The sort of stuff that makes it a pleasure to need a new septum. Grant seemed to be alone. I pussy-footed round until he was clearly in my view, but facing away from me.

  ‘Turn around,’ I said quietly. He stiffened, and let the juke-box tilt back gently onto its feet, then slowly turned his head until he could see me.

  ‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘Now turn around like I told you to and keep your hands where I can see them.’ The words sounded stilted and overdramatic. But coupled with the machinegun I was holding, pointed at his back, they seemed to work. He turned on the balls of his feet and stood with his arms raised from the sides of his body. All at once I heard the sound of an engine from behind me. Without thinking, I turned my head and saw a Hi-Ace truck with the words ‘BRIGHT LEISURE’ painted on the sides turn beneath the arch directly behind me and pull into the yard. At the wheel was the Heavyweight. The Ingram was no longer covering Grant, and he took his chance and ran back into the shadows inside the warehouse. Heavyweight, meanwhile, seeing me standing holding the machinepistol hit the brakes of the van. It skidded to a halt on the damp cobbles. When it stopped, he tried to put it into reverse, but only managed to stall the engine. He was desperately trying to re-start it when I ran up to the vehicle and stuck the barrel of the M10 through the open window of the van.

  ‘Leave it,’ I ordered. He immediately took his hand off the ignition key. ‘Get out,’ I continued, and stepped back from the cab door so as to allow him room to do so. He opened the door slowly and stepped out of the truck. ‘Face down on the ground,’ I said, jamming the gun into his side. He dropped to the muddy ground as if to start a series of press-ups. ‘Spreadeagle,’ I shouted. He concurred. Just as I was going to frisk him, I heard heavy footsteps from within the darkened warehouse. Through the gloom I saw Grant running towards the loading bay door. He was carrying the sawn-off I'd already seen him use to great effect.

  ‘Get up,’ I said to the black man lying on the ground. ‘Get behind the truck, quick.’ He sprang to his feet and I pulled him out of Grant's firing line, behind the van. I kept the Ingram poking into the negro's spine, with my left hand twisted into the material of his shirt. I peered out from behind the protection of the bodywork of the Hi-Ace. We were so close I could smell his sour odour.

  ‘This is on full automatic,’ I hissed into his ear. ‘If I pull the trigger, your guts are down the road.’

  Grant slid to a halt behind the juke-box which he had abandoned on the loading bay floor. I saw him stealing a glance towards us, using the box as a shield. My hand was greasy with sweat on the pistol grip of my gun. I was scared again. I didn't want to die in a muddy yard in a South London slum . I wanted to live and would do anything to make sure I did. I hammered the muzzle of the Ingram into the Heavyweight's kidney and whispered into his ear. ‘Walk slowly in front of me.’

  ‘Fuck off, Blood,’ he said. They were the first words he'd spoken since driving into the yard.

  ‘I'll shoot you in the back if you don't, now move,’ I said threateningly. I let go of his shirt to check that the magazine of the machine-pistol was pushed securely home, and he took his chance to make a break for it. He powdered himself around the side of the truck, shouting as he went, ‘Don't shoot, it's me.’

  Grant took no notice, perhaps he was as scared as me. Obviously he'd identified the Ingram for what it was. As the black man left the shelter of the van, Grant stepped from behind the juke-box and fired his shot gun. Immediately he ducked back. The shot hit the Heavyweight in mid-stride, across his upper arms and chest. The force of the sawn-off's load snapped his head back. A gout of blood, skin and material from his shirt fountained from his body, a good deal of it splashing onto me. His legs kept pumping, but the punch from the blast knocked his body backwards. He did a lazy half-flip and landed in a puddle of dirty water by the front bumper of the truck. I squinted through the side window of the van, and saw through the windscreen, Grant, half hidden by the juke-box. He was desperately trying to re-load his gun. In the excitement he must have discharged both barrels. It was all the edge I required.

  I moved out from my cover and pulled the trigger of the Ingram. The tiny gun burped noisily in my hands, and I felt the kick reverberate up my arms. I'd aimed too low, but the muzzle velocity pulled the gun upwards as I'd remembered it would. The shells hit the juke-box, shattering coloured glass, plastic and chrome which flew in all directions. At that range, it was as if there was nothing in the way. The bullets zipped up Grant's chest, throwing him backwards onto a work bench which collapsed under his weight in a cloud of dust. He lay in the debris, blood pumping from his wounds. The shot gun lay by his side. I paused to draw a shakey breath. The shooting had taken less than twenty seconds to occur. It felt like a lifetime. For two out of three of us involved, it was.

  I checked the Heavyweight's body. He was dead. The mass of pellets from the shot gun had nearly r
ipped one of his arms off. The puddle in which he lay was stained a deep red colour. I didn't feel a thing. I remembered what he and Lynch had done to Terry Southall.

  Next I ran over and jumped up onto the loading bay. Grant was still alive, but only barely. His heart was still beating, but there was nowhere for the blood to go. His chest was a mess, blood and fluid ran across the concrete floor of the bay. I breathed deeply to retain my equilibrium. I left him where he lay. I'm no doctor, and even if I was I'd have done nothing.

  I checked the magazine of the Ingram. There were twelve bullets left, which meant I'd pumped twenty shots into Grant's body. I was quite happy, he'd deserved it.

  I picked up the sawn-off that he had dropped; it was empty. I found the two fresh cartridges he'd been trying to load on the floor. I finished the job. I could feel the presence of more people in the warehouse and I needed all the firepower I could muster, besides I wanted the shot gun for evidence. I hung the M10 by it's strap from my shoulder and, shot gun at the ready, I moved deeper into the building. I walked slowly through the loading bay and into the dimness of the warehouse proper.